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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25467640">The Garden of Proserpine</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara'>solomonara</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Injustice: Gods Among Us</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Don't copy to another site, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No New Character Death, Past Character Death, Spooning, Swearing, Vomiting, and current character death I guess but like, deadman!dick, for medicinal purposes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:08:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,188</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25467640</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick sat out the majority of Batman and Superman's war, but that doesn't mean it didn't leave deep wounds. But death isn't what it used to be these days and Dick is surprised to find he's not the only dead Robin still wandering around. Maybe there's hope for healing after all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson/Jason Todd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>JayDick Summer Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/abscission/gifts">abscission</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Big thanks to Penta and Empires for running yet another awesome exchange, to my recipient who gave me such good prompts to choose from, and to my beta reader,<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSorceress22/pseuds/DragonSorceress22"> DragonSorceress22</a> - all mistakes remaining are definitely my own doing.</p><p>Title is borrowed from <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45288/the-garden-of-proserpine">Algernon Charles Swinburne's poem</a>.</p><p>This fic follows the "good" ending of Injustice and pulls from both the game storyline and the comics (but not Injustice vs Masters of the Universe, since those comics follow the "bad" ending). If you need a refresher on what everyone was up to at different points in Injustice and where they all ended up, I found this list helpful: https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Injustice</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dick Grayson, ghost, floated onto the last bus of the night as it wended its way in fits and starts back to the depot. Riding a bus did take a little concentration so that he didn't space out and phase through the seats, but it beat trailing after the thing in the cold autumn rain.</p><p>Not that he could <em>feel</em> the cold or the rain, but for all the years he'd been dead he had still more years of appreciating the chance to be dry on a stakeout when he had the opportunity. Old habits died just as hard as he did, it would seem.</p><p>A glance around at the sparse occupants told him the demon he was hunting wasn't here. Dick hadn't really been expecting it to get on the bus and ride, but he <em>had </em>been expecting it to show up at the bus depot right around one AM, which was just a bit after this bus would be stabled for the night, and if Dick could find the thing <em>before</em> the dark ritual started, so much the better.</p><p>He cataloged the riders with a close eye just in case. Old lady with a plastic hair cover near the front, man of indeterminate age sleeping something off across the accessible seats, and… hm. His attention snagged on a guy two rows ahead of him and across the aisle, though Dick couldn't say why. It was like hearing someone shout "Hey you!" across the room. You stopped and checked.</p><p>The passenger was leaning forward in his seat, face shadowed by the hood he had pulled up as far as it would go. He looked half a ghost himself, running the thumbnail of one hand under the fingernails of the other with both hands shaking. Rust flakes drifted to the floor and Dick's eyes narrowed.</p><p>He floated up and around, getting in front of the guy to try to get a better look. The passenger chose that moment to lift his head so quickly Dick would have been in danger of a head butt if he'd been corporeal. Instead, his face was left two inches from wild blue-green eyes that were suddenly searching the bus for something.</p><p>"Jason." The name fell out of Dick's mouth before he could rationalize it away, before he could let himself remember that Jason was <em>dead</em>, as dead as Tim and Kate and Helena and… and Alfred. "Jason!"</p><p>Jason jerked, flinched like he'd actually heard Dick's exclamation, and Dick was so stunned he almost forgot to keep up with the bus. Luckily, it was pulling into its last stop before the depot.</p><p>Less luckily, Jason got to his feet and practically bolted. Dick was half after him before he remembered the demon. World saving and all. He… he could find Jason again.</p><p>Feeling like he was removing a limb, he wrenched his attention away from the rapidly dwindling figure in a hoodie and tried to focus on the task at hand.</p><p> </p><p>It was unusual for Rama Kushna to set Dick a task these days. In fact, she hadn't explicitly instructed him to do anything since things had started getting very, very bad between Bruce and Clark. Dick had done what he could to help, accomplishing the task Boston Brand had entrusted him with and haunting his remaining family when he could, trying to nudge things in the right direction.</p><p>He'd watched Clark drip poison into Damian's ear, seducing him to the Regime. He'd watched Bruce grow more and more rigid in order to hold himself together, watched him fail time and again to reach out to Damian despite Dick's pleading with him.</p><p>And then, Alfred…</p><p>Something <em>broke</em> in Dick, then, when he found out. He felt like a ghost for the first time, completely unmoored from reality. He'd drifted a little, he thought, before coming to in Rama Kushna's arms. For a goddess, she was surprisingly caring, stroking intangible hair back from his head and hushing him gently.</p><p>It was his heart, she told him, that had broken. And since heart was half of what he was now, that was a serious injury indeed. Her next task for him was simple: rest. She would summon him if the world needed him.</p><p>Somehow, despite the decimation of the Lanterns, and the summoning of alternate realities, and an alien invasion, the world had not needed him. He drifted in and out of waking in Rama Kushna's domain, the will that had propelled him throughout his life finally stretched so far that it was all he could do to continue existing.</p><p>When the dust settled, Rama Kushna had gently directed his attention back to the world, where Clark was imprisoned and where Bruce was founding a new Justice League. Dick had nodded, and gone out once more, filling himself in on what he'd missed at a safe distance.</p><p>Virtually none of it was good, but Dick picked up scraps of relief here and there. Damian was alive, and he wasn't imprisoned. Babs was alive and supporting Bruce. And eventually he came across a small, lonely cabin nestled in the woods of Wisconsin whose occupant didn't seem to mind a minor haunting.</p><p>Dick wanted to be there right now, in fact, but a mission from Rama Kushna was nothing to be taken lightly. Boston Brand had only occasionally had them himself, Dick knew from his case file, and had spent most of his undeath pursuing justice on his own. That would have been right up Dick's alley, back in the days before the world had ended a few times, but now… now he wanted the sigh of wind in trees blushing with autumn, gentle rains and the smell of tea when the cupboard beside the sink was opened.</p><p>He was recovering, still. And he was tired. And he was <em>annoyed</em> that this demon was taking so damn long to show up!</p><p>Dick was definitely in the right place. The bus depot was a nexus, the edges of a few of the universe's tectonic plates converging here and just waiting for the wrong nudge to send them skidding over each other. Waiting, just like Dick was waiting, for a demon with an apparently casual approach to cosmic deadlines.</p><p>The planets shifted subtly out of their alignment and Dick moped, hovering near the rafters of the depot. Had he somehow given himself away and scared the demon off? No intergalactic earthquake was a good thing, but now Dick had no way of finding the demon running around out there.</p><p>He could still use his contacts among the living, though. He could get in touch with Zatanna, Constantine, the Justice League… Jason.</p><p>The demon could probably wait. It wasn't like planetary convergences happened every day. It wasn't like Rama Kushna wouldn't give him a heads up if something was about to seriously shake the cosmos.</p><p>He was out on the street, hovering over a bus shelter before he knew it. That could happen sometimes, if he wasn't careful; his thoughts could carry him right away. But as long as he was here…</p><p> </p><p>Jason wondered, as he scrubbed at his nail beds over the bathroom sink, whether demon blood would react with normal cleaning supplies. If he poured bleach over his hands to get them clean, would he gas himself out of his apartment?</p><p>He decided against trying it, recognizing the thought as excessive and anxious. The blood was coming out fine with soap and water. In fact, he could probably stop washing his hands now.</p><p>He just hadn't been expecting the blood to be red.</p><p><em>It's not like you haven't had blood on your hands before. </em>That was a stupid thing to think, though, because that conjured the gory specter of one head after another bursting with a dull, wet <em>pop</em>, blood and other things practically atomizing into the air. He hadn't actually got the blood on his hands that time, he thought even as he lunged for the toilet. His stomach turned itself inside out, bile burning his throat and dripping thinly into the bowl as tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. He'd been standing well back when he'd activated the bombs in the Suicide Squad's heads. So it was stupid to be reacting this way because of a little demon blood.</p><p>His mind was clear and rational, but his body wasn't on board. When he stopped retching he slumped to the side, pressing his forehead against the cold floor and taking a few seconds to breathe.</p><p>Then he got up, rinsed his mouth, splashed water on his face, and washed his hands again.</p><p>He'd been jumpy since he'd happened across that demon at the Second Street corner store. Jason had been intending to pick up something caffeinated on his way home from the library. The only other person in the store besides the clerk had been a middle-aged man with an actual pocket protector on his button-down. Jason had caught his reflection in the glass of the refrigerator case, though, and it turned out it wasn't a middle-aged man at all.</p><p>Demons weren't always bad. There wasn't always a point to dealing with them. But this one… what Jason saw in the glass was his aura, and it was bad all the way through. His mind processed evil in a way he could understand, showing him a cancerous blob oozing down the aisle, the congealed brown-red of dried blood with shiny white maggots tunneling their way through it. A harmless demon might just have a pair of horns, or a slightly distorted face, or a heat-shimmer aura but this one…</p><p>Jason followed it out of the corner store and killed it in the back alley. Demons weren't hard to dispatch if you knew where to hit. If you could see their weaknesses. If you weren't afraid to get your hands dirty.</p><p>He'd been shaking like a leaf all the way home, his senses in overdrive, the things he normally tuned out buffeting against his consciousness with sudden snaps like swallows' wings. He'd swear that bus was haunted, too, and had gotten off a stop early.</p><p>Now he lay on his bed on top of the covers in a clean shirt and comfortable pajama pants with headphones on and a cold washcloth over his eyes. He didn't really want to fall asleep… but being awake was starting to be a burden, too.</p><p>His mind drifted into that hazy realm between sleep and wakefulness, his brain only occasionally checking in on the white noise playing through the headphones, on the itching tug of skin healing across a minor cut, on the just slightly too cold breeze from the window he'd forgotten to close.</p><p>Jason sat up suddenly, the cloth falling from his eyes. It was pouring rain outside. He hadn't opened a window at all. He ripped the headphones out and stared around the small bedroom. Yes, the windows were closed, but that slight chill didn't feel like a breeze now that he was paying attention to it. It didn't feel like anything natural at all, in fact.</p><p>He got out of bed, feeling like he was dragging about fifty extra pounds along with him. Nothing supernatural about that; he was just that tired. Nevertheless, a circuit of the apartment didn't take long. Nothing physical had gotten in. He checked that he still had a gun and a knife in reach and got back into bed, burrowing under the covers this time. Probably just another ghost. Bludhaven was riddled with them.</p><p> </p><p>Dick hovered over the lump of blankets that was Jason Todd, so excited he was having a hard time staying level. Jason was <em>alive</em>. And he could tell Dick was there! Normally, if Dick was in the House of Mystery or the Tower of Fate or somewhere similar, magic users or other supernatural beings could interact with him. But it was a rare human who could do so without even trying, just randomly out in the world.</p><p>"Jason, come on, don't go to sleep now. It's me, it's Dick. I thought you were dead!" Dick rambled on, keeping up the steady stream of dialogue he'd been rattling out since he'd floated through Jason's wall after tracking him down. He had a million questions, not least of which was how Jason had gotten so good at tuning out the supernatural things he could clearly sense.</p><p>Dick gave up when Jason started snoring and turned his attention to the rest of the apartment with a small huff. Excited as he was to find Jason alive, he hadn't forgotten the flecks of dried blood he'd been scrubbing off his hands. And alive was one thing, but well was clearly another. Dick was pretty sure he was in better shape than Jason looked right now and that was pretty bad considering he didn't have a body.</p><p>The apartment was small and had the feel of a temporary living space. A card table with a single folding chair in the kitchen-slash-living room served as a work area. A towel that looked as worn out as Jason hung in the bathroom with no compatriots. When Dick stuck his head in the refrigerator, he was greeted by a few fast food ketchup packets and a single withered apple that spoke of good intentions abandoned.</p><p>He went back to the card table. The laptop on it was closed, which was a frustrating obstacle, but Jason had some notes scribbled on a legal pad next to it. It was mainly locations with a few arrows drawn to rearrange them, and some dates all in the past. He was trying to build a timeline for something, but there seemed to be a lot of gaps.</p><p>Dick floated back into the bedroom, casting a worried glance at the places he knew Jason had his weapons. Guns, huh? That was new. Bruce would have an aneurism. Did he know? Why would Jason keep himself secret? There were too many questions and only one way to get the answers since he couldn't actually touch anything.</p><p>That would have to wait for morning. He let himself glide upward, through the roof, and stretched his senses out over the city, idly scanning for his missing demon while he waited for Jason to wake.</p><p> </p><p>Jason was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing he owned a coffee pot when someone started knocking at his door. At first he ignored it. Answering the door when he wasn't expecting someone simply wasn't in his makeup.</p><p>But the knocking continued, and eventually an elderly voice called, "Jason, I know you're awake!"</p><p>That got him up. He didn't recognize the voice, but no one should know his name. He approached the door warily, knife in easy reach, and peered through the peephole.</p><p>He did recognize the thin old man standing in the hallway. He had a little pot belly and always wore a blue baseball cap adorned with only the distant memory of a logo. His name was Roger and he lived next door and listened to Polish radio a six o'clock in the morning, and there was absolutely no reason for him to know Jason's name or to be knocking on his door.</p><p>Jason left the chain on and opened the door a crack. He didn't say anything – he didn't want to encourage the old guy in whatever the hell this was – but he didn't have to. Roger started talking immediately.</p><p>"Finally. Jason, it's Dick. Let me in."</p><p>Roger's Polish accent was nowhere in evidence. But more importantly, Jason only knew one Dick and he wasn't an 81 year old retired mechanic. "I think you might be a little confused, Mr. Korczak. You should go home."</p><p>"That's sweet, but it's really me, Jay. Dick Grayson. I'm possessing Mr. Korczak."</p><p>Jason took a few moments to stare. He felt like he deserved them.</p><p>"Don't make me get into Bruce's nighttime activities to prove it," Roger said with a grin that was a few decades too young.</p><p>"Are you… the ghost that was here last night?" Jason asked.</p><p>"You always were quick on the uptake. You gonna let me in?"</p><p>"You're possessing my neighbor."</p><p>"He'll be fine. I'm not your average ghost," Roger/Dick said.</p><p>"Of course you aren't. Why would you be an average anything," Jason muttered, even as he shut the door to slide the chain free.</p><p>Dick stepped inside and went immediately to the single folding chair and sat down. "Thanks. Roger's not in great shape."</p><p>"He's 81."</p><p>"Everything hurts and he needs glasses but apparently refuses to wear them."</p><p>"Better than being, say, dead?" Jason suggested.</p><p>"You tell me," Dick said, eyeing him with a shrewd, if slightly unfocused, look.</p><p>"You first."</p><p>Dick shrugged with Roger's bony shoulders. "I'm Deadman now."</p><p>"Oh." That did explain it really succinctly. "How'd you find me? Or do you just haunt Bludhaven out of habit?"</p><p>"No," Dick said. "That was pure luck. I had no idea you were even— I mean, Jay, <em>how? </em>Does B know?"</p><p>Jason's mouth did a complicated little twist. "No."</p><p>"Why not?" Dick demanded. "I don't know how much you've heard or how long you've been… been back but why <em>wouldn't</em> you tell him? After all the death and fighting, some good news—"</p><p>"No." Jason's voice was harsher this time, practically a bark. "Stay out of it, Dickie. Get back to whatever it was you were doing and forget you saw me." He swung the door open, clearly waiting for Dick to walk Roger's body out.</p><p>Dick stood, a confused frown creasing an already wrinkled face even more. "But—"</p><p>"Out."</p><p>"All right," Dick said slowly. "If that's what you want. Give me a holler if you spot a demon wandering around, though. I'm supposed to get rid of it." He'd hoped to surprise Jason with the mention of a demon, maybe bait him into leaving an opening for them to work together, but he was disappointed. Jason just rolled his eyes.</p><p>"Big old blob demon? Looked like rusty mashed potatoes? Already cleaned up <em>that</em> mess for you, Dickie. You're welcome."</p><p>"You killed a demon?"</p><p>"I have many talents."</p><p>"Including noticing ghosts."</p><p>Jason sighed and left the door, coming around behind Dick and putting his hands on Roger's pointy shoulder blades, literally pushing him out the door with a gentle but inexorable force. "Bye, Dick."</p><p>The door slammed behind him.</p><p> </p><p>Jason might be able to sense ghosts, but he apparently couldn't lock them out. Dick put Roger back where he'd found him then floated back into Jason's apartment. Jason was sitting at the little card table, elbows making indents in the lightly padded surface while he rested his face in his hands. He sat like that for about fifteen seconds, then seemed to gather himself.</p><p>He swept the papers into a messenger bag, then began retrieving weapons from where he'd stashed them around the apartment. The last to be packed away was the computer, after he double checked a few locations. Dick hovered over his shoulder watching as Jason checked what was clearly a hacked feed into something called Brother Eye. He was comparing unknown vigilante activity in San Francisco and London, clearly deciding which lead to pursue.</p><p>"Damian," Dick said out loud. "You're looking for Damian."</p><p>Jason gave no indication that he'd heard. He shut down the computer and packed it away and then was out the door without even a look back.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>"Bludhaven was a good start," Dick said conversationally from the passenger seat of Jason's beat-up Prizm. "He used to hang out here a lot. Hasn't for a while though." It was like talking to himself. "I hope you're taking this hunk of junk to the airport, because he's not in San Francisco. At least not last I checked."</p><p>Dick had wandered through Titans Tower in his early days back on Earth after waking from his heartbreak. It was empty now. And the last time he'd checked on Damian, months ago, he'd made his way to Europe. London was much more likely, especially with how closely Bruce watched international flights.</p><p>But Jason was guiding the car through the last of the awful city traffic and out to the suburbs, heading west.</p><p>"This car isn't going to make it two states," Dick opined.</p><p>Jason turned on the radio, setting it to some generic rock station.</p><p>"My alarm clock used to be set to this station," Dick said. "Doesn't give me warm fuzzies about it."</p><p>Jason drummed his finger on the steering wheel to the beat of the top forties.</p><p>"Ugh." Dick reached out even though he knew it was futile and flicked one of the preset buttons, as though he could actually change the channel.</p><p>The sound zeroed out with a whine and then slowly faded back in. Jason glared at the radio, then set his jaw and glared at the road instead.</p><p>Dick grinned and poked the radio again.</p><p>This went on for nearly three minutes before Jason finally sighed and turned the radio off. "Are you haunting my fucking car, Dick Grayson?"</p><p>"I don't know how to answer that since you can't actually hear me," Dick said. "Unless…" He stuck his whole finger into the radio and it staticked to life briefly.</p><p>Jason pursed his lips. "Guess that's a yes. Don't expect any conversation out of me. I don't particularly want to send us straight into a phone pole because you wanted to reenact <em>Ghost</em>."</p><p>That was fair enough. Dick subsided with arms crossed and stared out the window, thinking of all the things he wanted to ask Jason.</p><p>Jason was silent until they were well out of the suburbs and on their way to a long stretch of nothing. He stopped to get gas and, being apparently determined to lay low, paid in cash. Dick took the opportunity to hop into the gas station attendant.</p><p>"All right, thirty bucks on pump— Seriously Jay, what's going on? Can I tell Bruce you're back?"</p><p>Jason scowled even as he handed over the cash, which Dick-as-gas-station-attendant took absently. "No. Leave me alone." Jason turned and stalked out of the station. Dick hurried after him, leaving the gas station attendant wondering when he'd accepted the money and grateful that it was the right amount.</p><p>Jason put on an audiobook when they got back in the car. It was interesting enough that Dick kept his fingers out of it, hoping Jason would come out of his bad mood and be more amenable to discussion.</p><p>But Jason also ignored Dick when he possessed the girl working the drive-thru window where he stopped for lunch (or rather, where he grabbed lunch to eat with one hand while he kept right on driving.)</p><p>"You're going the wrong <em>way</em>," Dick said, his frustration mounting after hours in a car with someone who couldn't see or hear him. "Jason, just pull over and focus on me for a second!" he exclaimed. The windshield wipers clicked on and Jason jumped a little in his seat. He turned them off with a scowl, and also turned the air conditioning down a little. Dick subsided, not wanting to make Jason get into an accident. He had to stop sometime, though.</p><p> </p><p>Jason pulled into a motel long after the sun had set, finally reaching the point where continuing on would be irresponsible. He was in some Midwestern city that had gone a little past seedy and well into flowering on the decay and neglect spectrum. It was the kind of place where a motel clerk waited behind scratched plexiglass and didn't blink when someone paid for a room in cash.</p><p>If Jason eyed the clerk warily as she slid a key through a slot in the bottom of the glass, it was no more than she did to him as he took it. She didn't start asking him about Bruce, or about being alive, or anything and Jason breathed a little sigh of relief. He hitched his duffle a little more securely on his shoulder and went to his room.</p><p>The motel was quiet at this hour except for one room that had the television turned up a little loud, but it was at the other end of the hall from Jason's. The hallway smelled like stale smoke and Jason closed the door on it gratefully.</p><p>The room contained no hidden horrors unless you counted the pattern on the bedspread, which was only improved by a hole from a cigarette burn near the bottom. Jason examined the pillows, found nothing objectionable, and sat down on the edge of the bed to pull his boots off.</p><p>The lamp by the bed hummed a little worryingly, but that was surely just crappy motel wiring. Jason lay back and turned it off. He closed his eyes and exhaled, letting a full day of driving leak out of his bones.</p><p>The lamp turned back on.</p><p>"Damn it, Dick!" Jason yelled, flinging a pillow at the air next to the lamp. It hit the curtains and fell to the ground with a sad <em>plop</em>. Jason took the other pillow, rolled over, and pressed it over his head, blocking out the light.</p><p>The pipes in the bathroom gave a half-hearted rattle and then, as though encouraged with the results, a more enthusiastic one. Jason growled and fumbled for his headphones, jamming them into his ears and pawing at his phone until it started playing something. It picked up the audiobook he'd been listening to in the car, which was just fine.</p><p>With sound and light blocked out, Jason closed his eyes again and waited for sleep to come. The book narrator's voice had a pleasing cadence and Jason evened out his breathing, tipping his mind into that stretched, blank place it needed to be in for a shallow sleep.</p><p>He tipped right past shallow and into the deep end of a glowing green pit. He thrashed, trying to swim to the edge he knew must be there, but bony fingers curled around his ankles, his wrists, his neck. <em>Come back</em>, a dry, distant voice rattled. <em>You weren't supposed to come back.</em></p><p>Jason fought harder as he was dragged deep. He'd drown, surely, but the Pit would just bring him back again and again until—</p><p>He woke up when the audiobook's narrator hit a particularly exciting bit of the book, voice rising sharply. Jason huffed out a relived breath and yanked the headphones out. The lamp was off now, but he could dimly make out the stained ceiling in the light from the parking lot that seeped through the thin curtains. He stared upward, waiting for his heart to calm.</p><p>The room exhibited no odd noises, the cool air easily explained by the efforts of the air conditioner rattling (a normal amount) under the window. Jason started a breathing exercise, trying for the physical benefit without focusing so much he might see something he regretted.</p><p>It worked to calm him, but sleep was unlikely after the nightmare. Every time Jason felt himself dozing his brain would jolt awake. A blessing in some ways, but it was going to make it difficult to make the kind of progress he'd made today tomorrow.</p><p>Jason stared at the ceiling, running his thumb along the edges of his phone, willing sleep to come but dreading it.</p><p>"It was a Lazarus Pit," he said softly to the empty room. "Mostly. I don't… Ra's wasn't super clear on the details. About anything, really." He didn't know why he'd said it at all, but once he started he couldn't stop. He spoke in broken, halting sentences about madness given structure by a firm hand and a clear enemy. Of the certainty he'd felt having a plan to follow, seeing the ills of the world pointed out.</p><p>Of how that certainty tarnished, and how he'd ignored the creeping doubt slowly pushing back the shining green edges of his life. He'd helped Damian anyway, helped him to get the… the body…</p><p>"The things we did, you'd never forgive." His voice wasn't even a whisper, just a thin thread being pulled from his throat and winding into a skein of confession. "And then… then I left Damian behind. It was all falling apart and I couldn't see the plan anymore. I think I thought his family would take care of him, I'd like to say I knew he'd be all right but… I wasn't really thinking at all. I just left. Laid low for the big showdown, but now. Now I have to find him. I owe him. The last living Robin. Figure I'll find him, stick close if he'll let me. And if not…" Jason's voice trailed off into a sigh, the stream of words exhausting him like nothing else had. If he grabbed onto sleep now, he might not even dream. "If not, I guess the ghosts need someone to talk to."</p><p>He fell silent, nothing else in him, confessions hanging in the air around him like naval mines. He turned over, resting his face on his palm, and let his heavy eyelids close.</p><p>"You still there, Dick?"</p><p>A soft brush of cool air lifted the hair from his forehead and whether it was because the AC had just kicked on or because a ghost was trying to reach out to him, Jason didn't much want to think about. He inhaled deeply, willing the chill to send him to the deeper recesses of sleep.</p><p> </p><p>He slept the night through and woke up slow in a way he hadn't in months. When he finally let his eyes open to the crisp light of an autumn morning – slightly wrinkled having gone through greasy motel curtains, but identifiable all the same – he actually almost smiled.</p><p>Then he remembered last night. The nightmare seemed nothing to the things he'd divulged in the dark, and that made sense; his life had been (he'd <em>made</em> his life) nightmare enough on its own.</p><p>He sat up and looked around the room, as if that would help. Then he gathered himself, closed his eyes, and focused in the exact way that he tried never to do.</p><p>The coolness in the air smelled recycled and artificial. The only sounds were from the other guests of the motel stirring and going about their mornings on a spectrum of grumpiness; raised voices, showers, slamming doors.</p><p>"Dick?" Jason whispered. There was no answer, no feeling at all of Dick's slightly-more-alive-than-other-ghosts presence. "Figures," Jason huffed. He jammed his feet back into his shoes and scooped his duffle up on his way out the door.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jason had <em>left</em>. Dick had only been gone a day or two, and he'd left! Well, all right, Dick hadn't expected him to stick around a crappy motel when he was clearly determined to go to San Francisco, but somehow Dick hadn't thought he'd have any trouble <em>finding</em> him again. He hovered around I-80 in Nebraska and Wyoming, figuring that was how far Jason was likely to have gotten in the time Dick had been gone, but there was no sign of him.</p>
<p>He'd know. He didn't know how, but now that he'd laid eyes on Jason, felt the pull of him, listened to him bare his soul in the dark… There was no way Dick could lose him.</p>
<p>Except that he kind of had.</p>
<p>Maybe Jason had decided not to go to San Francisco after all? Dick popped in and out along the route he would have taken, unsure if he'd overshot or undershot. He finally headed back east, to the last place he'd seen Jason, thinking to follow his trail like a spiritual bloodhound. It shouldn't be hard. Jason's aura was an irregular, spiky thing that tugged and caught at the edges of reality, foxing them and leaving them slightly fuzzed until they sorted themselves out like a cat shivering its fur back into place. To Dick, sitting just slightly outside of reality, touching Jason's aura felt like dragging his hand through a sun-warmed pool: just a bit of fluid resistance, the wake of which tugged gently at him. But the main thing was that he <em>felt</em> anything at all. If Jason wasn't so clearly discomfited by the whole thing, Dick would never stop touching him.</p>
<p>Assuming he could <em>find</em> him.</p>
<p>Ah. There. Dick looked around when he felt the slight tug of Jason's tide and was surprised to find himself much further east than he should have been, not far at all from the motel where he'd left Jason. He zeroed in on the feeling, circling closer and closer in a fading steel town somewhere in the Midwest, wondering what had caught Jason's attention so hard that he'd stopped traveling only hours from his last stop.</p>
<p>The motel was a close relative of the previous one, its aspect not improved by the gloomy, cloud-heavy fall day. Dick spotted Jason's car in the parking lot and floated directly through the wall of the room that felt right.</p>
<p>"Did you miss… oh my God." Dick pulled up short in the air.</p>
<p>Jason was lying on the bed curled on his side, arms wrapped around his middle, a sheen of sweat coating his skin. He was wearing only an undershirt and boxers and Dick could clearly see a swath of bandages wrapping his torso under the sweat-soaked shirt.</p>
<p>"Jay, Jay, what did you <em>do</em>?" Dick fretted, hovering over Jason with outstretched hands. "I can't… how can I help?"</p>
<p>Jason didn't seem aware of him in the slightest. His eyes were squeezed closed and he did appear to be sleeping, but not well. Dick couldn't feel anything in this state, but Jason showed all the signs of having a fever. He would guess that, were he corporeal, he'd feel the heat radiating off of him.</p>
<p>Dick ran his hands through the air just over Jason's body. His aura gave barely any resistance, the usual velvety warm tug of it watered down and thin.</p>
<p>"I'll get help," Dick said, even though Jason couldn't hear him. He darted out of the room, seeking a body.</p>
<p>One room contained an old man with an oxygen tank, another a mother caring for a baby, a third an extremely drunk young woman. Not great options. He zipped into the lobby and let out a frustrated groan when he found the desk unmanned. But just as he was about to give up, a speckle-faced teen boy came out of the back office and settled himself in the chair with a library book for company. He was a little twiggy, but sober, and Dick settled into him with a silent apology, snagged the motel's master key, and ran back to Jason's room.</p>
<p>The door, of course, was deadbolted from the inside. Not really a hindrance for Nightwing, but for – Dick glanced down at his nametag – <em>Calvin, </em>it might as well have been a sealed vault. He tried anyway, hoping technique would make up for strength. His sneaker-shod foot made a satisfying <em>bang</em> against the door, but the deadbolt held and a spike of pain shot through Calvin's knee.</p>
<p>"Fuck," Dick made Calvin whisper under his breath. He ran to the end of the hallway, careful of the weight he put on the knee just in case, and pushed through the exit to circle the building. Maybe he could get the window open – that was more finesse than strength and he could perhaps find makeshift tools.</p>
<p>But the windows weren't the sort that opened. Dick debated finding a way to break it, but didn't want to risk hurting Jason any further, or drawing any attention to him when he was hurt as badly as he seemed to be.</p>
<p>Dick steered Calvin back to the front desk (knee seemed to be okay, no permanent damage) mind whirring. He left the teen with his book and went back to Jason's side.</p>
<p>"Sorry about this, Jason," he said. He possessed people without permission all the time since he actually had no way of obtaining permission, but he knew Jason would consider it an extreme violation. "I'll do whatever you want to make it up once you're better." He mimicked Jason's curled position in the air above him, then slowly lowered himself into Jason's skin.</p>
<p><em>Heat, </em>and <em>painpainpain </em>and <em>breathe, just breathe, breathing hurts, painpainpain </em>and suddenly Dick found himself hovering in the air above Jason once more, disoriented and blinking in confusion.</p>
<p>Jason was too hurt and too delirious with fever to take care of himself even if Dick was driving his body. His mind was so distracted just hanging on that there had been barely any room in there for Dick. He'd thought it would be easier than usual to possess him, given Jason's affinity to the spiritual world, but it was possible the opposite was true, too.</p>
<p>Dick lowered himself to kneeling on the bed, leaning over Jason, trying to get a look at the wound that, if what he'd felt while attempting to possess Jason was any indication, was definitely infected. Unless it was poisoned.</p>
<p>"I don't know how to help you," Dick murmured, trying to pull up Jason's shirt even though he knew there was no possible way he could do so. "Maybe I can go find someone stronger, but this fever—"</p>
<p>Jason sighed, curling toward Dick, his face relaxing just the barest amount.</p>
<p>Dick froze, then brought his other hand to bear, spreading his fingers over where he thought the wound was. Jason exhaled and pulled in a slightly easier breath, one of his hands coming uncurled to reach toward Dick – toward the source of the coolness that he'd just felt easing his flushed skin.</p>
<p>Dick brushed a hand over Jason's forehead, much as he had the last time he'd seen him, wishing he could wipe away the sweat there. A soft, relieved groan escaped Jason's throat and he nestled his head further into the pillow, trying to get closer to the chill.</p>
<p>"Okay," Dick said. "Okay. We can do this." After all, he remembered, help was coming. "Just hang on for a day." If he could break the fever, Jason might be able to take care of the rest himself – or Dick might be able to possess him long enough to do it for him.</p>
<p>Dick floated himself behind Jason, pressing his chest to Jason's back and fitting the curve of Jason's legs with his own. Being a ghost meant he could wrap his arms around Jason without losing feeling in the arm that went underneath, and without aggravating Jason's wound. It also meant he couldn't feel the solid weight of Jason against him, or pull him closer, or offer words of comfort. But it would do for now.</p>
<p>Dick couldn't feel Jason relax in his arms, but he could see it. The sweat on his skin began to dry. Dick closed his eyes in relief and pressed closer. Jason's aura was still a thin, airy thing but Dick could feel it reach out to snag at him – and then, to his surprise, wrap thin tendrils around him, pulling him closer.</p>
<p>Taking that to mean he was doing the right thing, Dick settled in to wait.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jason wasn't quite awake enough to untangle himself from the blankets that were smothering him. He had just enough awareness to know he was way too hot, and that the slash marks scoring his side still hurt like hell. Or like coming back from hell. Or wherever he'd been.</p>
<p>Jason tried to roll, but the blankets were on all sides, heavy and damp with sweat. Too damp. He opened his eyes, struggling to wakefulness, some part of him thinking he was sitting in a pool of his own blood. But he couldn't see. He reached out and grasped at what he suddenly realized wasn't bedding, had never been bedding; it was dirt, heavy and black and all around him, pressing down on his shoulders, begging for entry into his mouth, crumbling into his nose.</p>
<p>But though it was uncomfortably warm and wet, the dirt was loose enough that he could dig, and so he did, shoving upward – somehow he <em>knew</em> which way was up – swimming through the thick clods that smelled like Alfred's garden after it rained.</p>
<p>And then he realized he could see, after all. Was he getting closer to the surface?</p>
<p>No. The light was coming from below him, a few feet back in the tunnel he'd carved out for himself. It was green. It was rising.</p>
<p><em>Oh, it's a nightmare</em>, Jason thought even as panic bubbled up in his chest to grip at his throat. He heaved at the dirt above his head, clawing it away, lungs bursting. His side ached like his ribs had turned to knives, but that was nothing to what would happen if that rising water caught him.</p>
<p>His lungs were burning and he'd inhaled more than his share of dirt. He had one last huge shove forward in him before he'd have to take a deep breath and choke on mud, so he made it count, ignoring the flare of pain in his side to thrust his arms forward as far as they would go.</p>
<p>His hands closed on air and Jason scrabbled at it, hauling himself out of the dirt. Instead of breaching the ground and crawling free, though, he tumbled, falling from a few feet up and landing on stone. He looked around, bewildered, and found he'd emerged from a collapsed wall in a cave.</p>
<p>And not just any cave.</p>
<p>"Oh no," Jason said as he looked up from where he sat on the floor.</p>
<p>A glass case loomed in front of him. In it was a Batsuit. The eyes of the cowl burned red.</p>
<p>Jason turned from it, lurching to his feet, but there was nowhere else to go. The suit blocked the way into the rest of the cave and behind him was only the dirt wall he'd crawled from. It was steaming and even as Jason watched, began to seep virulent green water.</p>
<p>The temperature in the cave was rising. Jason backed away from the wall of dirt until his back hit the glass case. He closed his eyes and was hardly even surprised when he felt a gloved hand land on his shoulder. He bent his head, resigned.</p>
<p>And then a breeze touched him, just a thin little thing hardly cooler than the stifling cave, but it smelled of open air, of metal and asphalt and exhaust and just a bit of the harbor. Jason looked up, confused, and found himself on a rooftop – the roof of the Gotham Exchange building to be exact. He recognized his favorite gargoyle crouched in the corner.</p>
<p>The hand on his shoulder was still there, though, and Jason looked at it apprehensively.</p>
<p>The middle fingers were striped blue.</p>
<p>Jason had just enough time to crease his eyebrows in annoyance before the hand gently turned him.</p>
<p>"Little wing?" Dick asked.</p>
<p>Jason blinked at him, then looked down at himself hurriedly, running his hands down his own chest just to be sure. No Batsuit. Just jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket. His relief came out in a sigh as the wind carried the last of the smell of cave and wet earth from his nose, cooling his skin pleasantly.</p>
<p>"Guess it's not a nightmare after all," Jason said.</p>
<p>"Nightmare?" Dick asked.</p>
<p>"Yeah. Wouldn't be, if you're here."</p>
<p>Dick grinned at him. "That might be one of the sweetest things anyone's ever said to me."</p>
<p>"Ah, shut up, dick face," Jason said, brushing Dick's hand away and turning to look out over the city. "I just mean you're never in my nightmares. No reason for you to be."</p>
<p>Dick came to stand next to him, though he turned his masked gaze to Jason instead of the city. "This is a dream, then?"</p>
<p>"Don't see what else it could be."</p>
<p>Dick frowned and pressed the back of his hand to Jason's forehead. Jason let him, with a bemused smile.</p>
<p>"Be surprised if you could feel anything through the suit," Jason said.</p>
<p>"Dream logic says I can," Dick said with a shrug. "How are you feeling?"</p>
<p>"I— good?" Jason sounded surprised. "Wait, didn't I—" He looked down at himself again, pushing his jacket aside and pulling his shirt up to check the wound. There was nothing there. He ran his hand over his side carefully. It was slightly warm, but that was all.</p>
<p>Dick added his own fingers to Jason's searching ones, crouching to examine the spot himself. Jason jerked his hand away, then stood there awkwardly holding his shirt up until Dick was done with his inspection.</p>
<p>"I think that's good," Dick said, looking up at Jason from his crouch. Jason felt himself starting to blush and shoved the shirt and jacket back into place. Dick got to his feet. "What happened?"</p>
<p>"That demon I killed a few days ago had a friend. It'd been tracking me since Bludhaven and finally decided to pounce. Got in a lucky swipe before I took care of it."</p>
<p>"I shouldn't have left you," Dick said with a scowl. "It was probably waiting for that. Damn. I'm sorry, Jason."</p>
<p>Jason shrugged and turned away, like he was busy inspecting the skyline again. "Can't blame you. Guess my subconscious really wanted you here, though that's nothing new."</p>
<p>"Oh," Dick said. "Actually, I should tell you, I'm not sure this is really a dream, per se."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"I mean, I'm here. With you, in the motel room. I'm just not sure how much of <em>you</em> is here in this dream, or how much you'll remember when you wake up," Dick said.</p>
<p>"I… feel pretty present," Jason said slowly. "Wait, hold up, are you possessing me?" he demanded.</p>
<p>"No, I promise I'm not," Dick assured him. "Something like this has never happened to me. But the whole Deadman thing didn't exactly come with a tutorial."</p>
<p>"Well, fuck. What— is it because I'm dying?"</p>
<p>"Absolutely not!" Dick sounded as though he was personally offended at the notion. "I found a way to keep your fever down, and that was the most urgent thing. I think you'll be okay."</p>
<p>"Okay…" Jason echoed, sounding skeptical. He walked over to his old friend the gargoyle and sat himself down next to it, leaning on it with a companionable arm.</p>
<p>Dick followed him over and sat down next to him, his leg brushing against Jason's as their feet dangled over the traffic far below. "Sorry, I just think I need to stay close," he said, instead of answering.</p>
<p>"It's fine," Jason mumbled. Between the cool stone of the gargoyle and Dick's thigh against his, he was feeling better all the time. "I don't mind."</p>
<p>"Kinda thought you might, given how hard you were trying to ignore me in Bludhaven and on the road."</p>
<p>"That was just… me running," Jason said. He was finding it very easy to be honest, and very hard to not say what was on his mind. Probably a consequence of having a conversation within a dream, he thought. "You just showed up, Dick. And I told you, Bruce doesn't know about me. None of it. Unless Damian told him, which I seriously doubt. I told you everything I've done though. He knows about all that. He just doesn't know it was me. And I'm not ready to be dragged back to him to face that."</p>
<p>Dick straightened in shock, his legs ceasing their easy swing. "I would never, Jay."</p>
<p>Jason gave him an exasperated look. "I don't think you could help it. You drag bat-drama with you, Dick. You couldn't even stop after you died! Though I guess I'm one to talk."</p>
<p>"No, you don't get it," Dick said, shaking his head. "I'm out of it. Have been for years. Sat out the war. I don't leave the house much, these days. The only reason I was out at all when I ran into you was a direct order from Rama Kushna, and she… oh fuck me, she probably knew this would happen."</p>
<p>"See? Bat-drama."</p>
<p>"Rama Kushna is hardly Batman," Dick said.</p>
<p>"Still."</p>
<p>Dick sighed. "Still," he agreed.</p>
<p>They were silent for a while, looking out at Jason's dreamt-up Gotham. It was really accurate for a dream-city. Jason tried not to think of seeing a black silhouette flying across the electric river of the street.</p>
<p>"So," Dick said eventually. "Dead Robins club."</p>
<p>Jason snorted. "Tim's missing out." Dick drew a sharp breath and Jason didn't miss the way his hands tightened on the concrete ledge. "Hey. You knew about that, right?"</p>
<p>Dick nodded. "I wasn't around. Rama Kushna had benched me at that point. But I found out. After."</p>
<p>"Yeah. Dead Robins club is right." Jason shook his head. "I <em>need</em> to make sure that doesn't happen to Damian."</p>
<p>"I know. Oh, that's what I was trying to tell you. You're going the wrong way. Damian's not in San Francisco."</p>
<p>"Ah, fuck," Jason said. "Well, guess I can detour to Chicago and get a flight—"</p>
<p>"No, you won't have to," Dick said. "I— huh." The buildings in the distance were wavering and fading as a thick fog rolled in. Even as he watched it, next to him Jason let out a yawn.</p>
<p>"I think I'm waking up," he said. He turned and looked Dick in the eye. "Hey. Thanks for coming back."</p>
<p>"Jason," Dick said, reaching out for his shoulder. "I didn't leave you because of anything you said. I was always going to come back." But anything more he wanted to say would have to wait. Jason's eyes fell closed and the city dissolved around them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dick opened his eyes, feeling like he was waking up. He wasn't, of course; he didn't sleep. But it felt like it all the same. In his arms, Jason was stirring. Dick let himself float away, peeling himself out of Jason's aura, which seemed determined to cling on. He felt… warm. For the first time in years. He hovered over Jason, staring down at him in amazement.</p>
<p>Jason's face cinched into a painful grimace and he put a hand over the wound in his side with a small groan before opening his eyes.</p>
<p>"Is that my head pounding or is someone at the door?" he wondered aloud. It was only then that Dick registered the knocking.</p>
<p>"Todd," a muffled voice called, soft enough that it wouldn't advertise to the entire motel but firm enough that it carried through the door. "If you don't open this door, I <em>will</em> kick it down."</p>
<p>Jason sat up far more quickly than he ought to have and stared at the door. "That sounds like Damian."</p>
<p>"It is Damian," Dick said. "And I think he's serious about kicking down the door."</p>
<p>Jason gave no sign that he'd heard and Dick felt his heart twist a little. How quickly he'd gotten used to being able to talk to him normally.</p>
<p>Jason stood slowly. "Keep your pants on, I'm getting there," he called in the general direction of the door, then winced as the effort to project forced him to use the muscles in his stomach. Despite his casual words, Dick could see his nervousness. That slow walk to the door wasn't due only to pain.</p>
<p>Jason paused with his hand on the handle and Dick wondered if he might not open the door after all. But then he turned and looked around the room, eyes finally settling exactly where Dick floated. "Don't go anywhere, okay?" he murmured, softly enough that Dick knew it wasn't meant for Damian.</p>
<p>He threw the bolt and opened the door. Damian stood in the hallway, a duffle thrown over his shoulder, casual in jeans and sneakers and a couple layers of shirts and jacket but Dick didn't miss the fact that he'd cut his hair into a distinctly nondescript style, and that he was wearing sunglasses that covered a good deal of his face. Still nervous, then.</p>
<p>Jason stood aside to let him in, watching him warily.</p>
<p>Damian scoffed. "Sit, Todd. I can tell you're injured." He was already in the bathroom, scooping up first aid supplies from where they were scattered across the sink; Jason's first efforts to take care of the cuts himself.</p>
<p>"Damian… how—" Jason tried.</p>
<p>"Let me see it," Damian ordered.</p>
<p>"What are you <em>doing </em>here?" Jason demanded right back.</p>
<p>They stared at each other for a few moments, challenging, while Dick hovered between them a hairsbreadth from literally wringing his hands. He wondered, then, if there was a measurement for tension, some sort of scale he could use to describe what was stretching between the two men in this room. Would it be Newtons, or PSI, or perhaps kilowatts given that their stares seemed about to spark?</p>
<p>"I was informed that you were in trouble," Damian said stiffly.</p>
<p>"By— oh. Dick," Jason said, eyes drifting to where Dick stood. Dick wasn't sure he'd realized he'd looked, but Damian did.</p>
<p>"Is he here?" Damian asked, the question calm but his eyes urgent, boring a hole in the air where Jason looked. Dick went to him with a small sound that no one could hear and wrapped his arms around him. Neither Damian nor Jason reacted.</p>
<p>"He's here," Jason said.</p>
<p>"You can sense him." It wasn't a question.</p>
<p>"I can—" Jason cut himself off with a sharp hiss, his hand going to his side as he bent in pain.</p>
<p>Damian frowned. "Todd, <em>sit</em>."</p>
<p>Jason must have been feeling it because he sat on the end of the bed without further commentary. Damian looked around for a chair but, finding the motel to be unequipped with one, knelt in front of Jason instead.</p>
<p>"Shall I cut it away?" Damian asked, gesturing at Jason's shirt.</p>
<p>Jason scowled at him and moved to pull the shirt off over his head, but froze when he got his arms up, the movement clearly aggravating the injury. He slowly lowered his arms and settled for pulling the shirt up with his opposite hand, much as he had in the dream. Damian carefully pulled the bandage away.</p>
<p>The wound was an angry-looking thing, three ragged slashes that started near Jason's back and tapered off as they curled around the front. They weren't particularly deep; Jason had clearly been moving away as he was struck. But they were red and glistening unhealthily. Damian sucked in a breath when he saw them and immediately reached up to press the back of his hand against Jason's forehead.</p>
<p>"Had a fever," Jason said, batting his hand away. "It's gone now."</p>
<p>"But this is still infected," Damian said. He opened the first aid kit and began pulling out antibacterial wipes. "Infected with <em>what, </em>I couldn't say. What were you doing?"</p>
<p>"Fightin' demons."</p>
<p>"Of course."</p>
<p>"Why, what have <em>you</em> been doing this whole time?" Jason asked.</p>
<p>"You mean since you abandoned me to my grandfather's tender mercies in South America?" Damian did not look up from where he was cleaning the slash marks, and Jason did not flinch at the disinfectant. He stared at the top of Damian's head.</p>
<p>"Yeah. That's what I mean."</p>
<p>Dick settled on the bed on his stomach next to Jason and reached out to follow each pass of Damian's cleaning with his own fingers, soothing and cooling the inflamed skin. He didn't know if it was helping, because Jason seemed frozen anyway.</p>
<p>"I fought. On the wrong side. It took Supergirl herself to show me that. And after that I… ran." Damian said, his mouth twisting. Dick could see it from his position, but he was sure Jason couldn't. "So perhaps I understand."</p>
<p>Jason scoffed and received a scowl from Damian when the action twitched the muscles around the wound.</p>
<p>"Leaving me behind was the logical thing," Damian said, looking up at Jason. "You knew my family would not kill me."</p>
<p>"There are so many worse things than death," Jason replied softly. "I should have come back for you."</p>
<p>"I have been fully capable of taking care of myself for many years now."</p>
<p>"And you shouldn't have <em>had</em> to. You were alone with a bunch of predatory adults, every one of them looking to take advantage—" Jason stopped abruptly, dropping his shirt and putting a hand over his eyes.</p>
<p>Damian lifted the shirt again gently and finished cleaning the wound before covering it with a fresh bandage. Dick's arms ached to hold them both, but all he could do was watch helplessly.</p>
<p>"And who was meant to be saving you, then?" Damian asked. He stood. Jason rubbed at one eye with the hand he'd covered his face with.</p>
<p>"I don't know, Damian. Maybe we were never meant to be saved."</p>
<p>Damian shook his head. "No. Probably not." A pause. "For what it is worth, I'm glad you aren't dead." He picked up his duffle and turned to leave.</p>
<p>"Oh no you don't," Dick said, springing from the bed in alarm. "I'll save you <em>both,</em> kicking and screaming if I have to." He was one step from possessing Damian when Jason spoke.</p>
<p>"Wait," he said.</p>
<p>"Oh, thank God," Dick muttered.</p>
<p>Damian turned back, a curious tilt to his head.</p>
<p>"You took a risk coming here," Jason said. "If Bruce—"</p>
<p>"He is not looking," Damian interrupted. "Because if he doesn't find me, he doesn't have to decide what to do about me."</p>
<p>"Yeah, but Brother Eye—"</p>
<p>"If I stay with you, it puts you at risk. Right now he doesn't even know to look for you," Damian said. "I assume you would like to keep it that way."</p>
<p>Jason looked to Dick for help. Dick was fairly sure he couldn't actually see him, could just sense him accurately enough to look, but he shrugged. What could he do, insubstantial and inaudible?</p>
<p>But Damian saw the look and his hand closed more tightly on his bag and suddenly Dick knew with absolute certainty that the Nightwing suit was in there.</p>
<p>"Damian," Dick said, reaching out to him. His hand stopped just short of touching Damian's cheek and he dropped it to his side with a sigh.</p>
<p>"Grayson," Damian said, and Dick pretended just for a moment that it was in response. "I wish— Can he hear me?" Damian asked.</p>
<p>"Uh, pretty sure," Jason said. "Actually, that's not all," he went on, eagerness creeping into his voice. "Something weird happened while I had the fever. Maybe it was just a dream but… I saw Dick. I talked to him. Like, he was there in my dream."</p>
<p>Damian looked uncertain, but Dick saw what Jason was getting at. He zipped over to the lamp and stuck his hand in it, making it flicker once, twice, until he managed to flicker out the Morse code for <em>affirmative</em>.</p>
<p>"He— it's been so many years," Damian said, staring at the lamp with hungry eyes. "I thought. I thought he'd moved on after…" he trailed off, a hand resting on the duffle at his side.</p>
<p>Jason shook his head. "He said something about being benched. But look, Damian, stay the night at least. Maybe he can tell you about it?"</p>
<p>"I… suppose. I should probably keep an eye on that wound, anyway," Damian said. The bag slipped from his shoulder and back to the ground. "And someone will have to defend you in case there are more demons that have escaped your notice."</p>
<p>Jason reached behind himself to snag a pillow and fling it at Damian, who caught it easily and informed Jason that it was now his. They settled into easy banter while Damian badgered Jason to change his fever-sweat-soaked clothes and Jason said he'd just borrow one of the three shirts Damian was wearing.</p>
<p>It wasn't that there weren't awkward silences. It wasn't that questions didn't lurk, bat-shaped, behind their careful easing into each others' presence. But it was a beginning. Dick, who hadn't realized his heart still carried hairline fractures, felt it heal just that little bit more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That night, when Damian was curled on one side of the bed and Jason sat up against the headboard on the other side keeping watch, Dick tried to enter Damian's dream.</p><p>Damian's aura was different from Jason's. Like most humans', it was thin: versatile and prone to manipulation. It brushed against Dick like mist, barely reacting to his presence. Dick reached out a curious hand to Damian's shoulder, then slowly brought himself in line with his body, trying to align himself both physically and metaphysically as he had with Jason last night.</p><p>He slipped slowly into Damian's mind, felt his heartbeat, the way his left shoulder ached a little from an old injury, the ever so slight nip of hunger in his belly that meant he'd be ravenous when he woke. Then his vision went dark, eyes closed, breathing steady, and—</p><p>No. Dick backed away, up and out. He'd possessed Damian in the usual way. And while Damian didn't view being possessed with the same visceral disgust that Jason did – Dick had had no choice, finding Damian totally isolated in England, but to possess him and leave him a note in his own handwriting, and Damian had reacted with surprise, but not anger – Dick suspected that was only because he'd been trained to think of his body as no more than a tool. Damian might not be appalled by that, but Dick was, and he wasn't going to take advantage of it unless the need was dire.</p><p>Dick sighed and hovered cross-legged in the air. "Was it a one-time thing?" he asked Jason. "Something to do with your fever? Or are you just special?"</p><p>Jason turned the page in the book he was reading – something from a second-hand shop whose paper cover was missing a corner. It seemed to be decorated with a yellowed map, an old-timey pistol, and a squid but it was so creased it was hard to tell.</p><p>"I mean, I know you're special. Obviously. Not just anybody can be Robin." He sidled around to read over Jason's shoulder. The book was apparently about a chef on a pirate ship and it was interesting enough so he stretched out pressed to Jason's side, half hovering so he didn't fall off the bed, to keep reading.</p><p>As he did, Jason sighed, a wave of tension going out of him. The hand that wasn't holding the book came to rest over the claw marks and he closed his eyes for a moment, settling more firmly against the pillow at his back.</p><p>Dick hadn't realized he'd settled against Jason's injured side. He was insubstantial, so it shouldn't have mattered; he couldn't have hurt him. But it seemed he was somehow helping. Maybe just because Jason registered Dick's presence as coldness, but not too cold to feel nice against hot skin.</p><p>"It's still pretty inflamed, huh?" Dick asked, looking at where Jason's hand rested as though he could see through the shirt to the wound underneath. He rested his own hand over Jason's and suddenly realized he could still feel the warmth he'd noticed when they'd woken. Not fever radiating from the wound, just… body heat, all along Jason where he was lying against him. Normal, human warmth that he had taken for granted his whole life.</p><p>Jason's aura, heavy and tugging, tangled around their hands and pulled at him just as it had last night.</p><p>"Special, then," Dick murmured.</p><p> </p><p>Damian slept for almost exactly four hours before waking on his own to take watch. The question was in the air as soon as he sat up, though Jason didn't voice it. Damian shook his head. </p><p>They swapped shifts without much fanfare, still used to it from the days when they might have worked as part of a team. Jason put his book down and turned onto his uninjured side. Damian got up and went to the bathroom, then began some basic stretches that wouldn't disturb Jason, occasionally getting up to peer out the window carefully.</p><p>Dick sat on the end of the bed and watched Damian while he waited for Jason to fall into a REM cycle. He was still surprised to look at Damian and see a full grown man taller than he was, even though he'd checked in on Damian more often than any other family member.</p><p>Still, he hadn't been quite sure how he'd find Damian, mentally and emotionally speaking, when he'd rushed off to point him in Jason's direction. He'd just known that Jason needed him.</p><p>There had always been the chance, of course, that Damian would want nothing to do with Jason, so Dick had only suggested it and waited to see what Damian would do. Though Dick's last check-in had Damian in Europe, he'd moved on. Dick had found him near the Welsh border, alone in the hills as he backpacked his way around the countryside.</p><p>Dick had been unable to so much as twitch a dry leaf on a branch, let alone make lights flicker or radios static like he apparently could when Jason was around. He'd eventually dropped into Damian's body as briefly as possible and scribbled a set of coordinates and one word – <em>Jason – </em>and hopped out again. He'd left Damian staring down at the scrap of paper in his hand, watched as his eyes widened and he realized what had happened.</p><p>Damian had stared around wildly, searching for Dick, but his gaze passed straight through him. Dick watched while Damian read the note over twice more and then tore it to shreds. His heart sank as he thought of what Jason had told him about leaving Damian behind. He'd thought Damian might be feeling just as lost as Jason, hoped he might seek out the contact, but…</p><p>But then Damian had made for the nearest airport and Dick had hurried back to Jason's side to wait. The thought had crossed his mind that maybe Damian was coming for vengeance, but he thought he knew his Robin better than that.</p><p>And he did. Damian hadn't hesitated to help. He was just as starved for family as Jason was. As Dick was. But, Dick thought, watching Damian rummage around in his duffle until he found a slightly smashed protein bar, maybe that could be fixed.</p><p>He turned his attention back to Jason. He'd put his back to the edge of the bed in order to stay off of his wound, so Dick came around to his front and reached a tentative hand out to him. His aura gave that familiar tug, welcoming Dick, so Dick tucked himself against Jason's chest and closed his eyes, focusing on letting Jason's aura pull him under.</p><p> </p><p>The patio bricks dug into his knees as Jason bent over Alfred's herb garden. He had rows of rosemary and thyme yet to plant, and Thanksgiving was fast approaching. He looked back over his shoulder, where he could see through the dining room window. Dick, Alfred, Kate, and Tim were sitting around the table laughing and talking. He could join them as soon as he was done.</p><p>He dug his hands into the dirt of the garden again, scooping a hole for his tiny sprig of thyme. There, planted. Now the next one. And the next.</p><p>His fingers scraped against a stone as he ploughed a space for the next plant and he winced. That would have to come out. He scraped the dirt away from it, looking for the edges so he could haul it out. When he had it, he gave a firm tug. It came out easily enough, but the dirt collapsed around it, earth falling into a void far larger than the stone had occupied. All of the thyme fell in and vanished.</p><p>Jason sat back on his heels and dropped the stone into the growing pile next to him. And then he started over again. The sun was getting low, and the leaves were turning before his very eyes. He would miss Thanksgiving if he didn't hurry.</p><p>"Jason," came Dick's voice behind him.</p><p>"I'm almost done," Jason said, planting the first (hundredth) rosemary seedling.</p><p>"Come sit with us, little wing."</p><p>"I can't. Not yet," Jason said. He didn't turn from the garden.</p><p>Dick knelt next to him, there on the brick of the patio, and put a hand between his shoulder blades. "I think you're done."</p><p>Jason looked over at him to find Dick's face very close to his own. "I miss you," Jason breathed and Dick lunged forward that spare two inches and kissed him.</p><p>Jason toppled backward into the garden, the smell of crushed rosemary rising around him as Dick followed him down. Jason grabbed his hips, pulling him close, leaning up to catch his offered mouth again. He spared a thought for the countless voids this garden apparently hid, then deliberately decided he did <em>not</em> want to think about that and moved one of his hands to the back of Dick's neck to pull him down even as he pushed his hips up. Dick's hands pressed on his shoulders, fingers curling in his shirt, legs spreading wider to accommodate the body between them, and Jason let himself fall into the nearly-drunk feeling of it all.</p><p> </p><p>Dick slipped into Jason's dream as easily as he had the first time and looked around curiously. Last time, Jason had been having a nightmare and Dick's touch had dragged him out of it. This time, though, things seemed calmer. Dick found himself on the patio behind the manor, looking out over the grounds where the trees were brilliant in red and orange and yellow. He looked around for Jason and spotted him at the other end of the patio – a considerable distance, given the size of the house – just as he fell backward into Alfred's herb garden and started making out with… Dick.</p><p>Dick wasn't sure if he could still blush, but if he could he was definitely doing it right then. He turned away quickly, suddenly very aware that he was invading someone's dreams, which was about as private as it got.</p><p>Just as easily as he'd entered Jason's dream, he found himself back on the motel bed curled still against Jason's chest. He stared into Jason's sleeping face, totally relaxed for a change. Then his traitor eyes traveled downward, just out of curiosity—</p><p>Dick twisted away from Jason abruptly, appalled at himself despite the little voice in his mind telling him to go back into that dream since Jason <em>clearly</em> wanted him there and wouldn't he prefer the real thing anyway?</p><p>Dick shivered and the lamp Damian had been reading by flickered. Damian looked up with wide, hopeful eyes. His expression changed to resignation when nothing further happened.</p><p>Dick put his face in his hands and forced himself to calm down. No. No more dream visiting, no matter <em>how </em>nice it was to be able to feel things like he was in his own body again. It wasn't right. He'd find another way to talk to them.</p><p> </p><p>Jason leaned back to take a breath while the tips of his fingers found the hem of Dick's white t-shirt and snuck underneath. Dick smiled down at him and Jason gave him a touch-drunk grin in return before turning his full attention to Dick's shirt.</p><p>And then he stopped.</p><p>Dick was wearing faded, nearly white jeans along with the white t-shirt and all of it was smeared with filthy handprints. Jason's hands flew away from Dick. "I shouldn't have touched you."</p><p>"I wanted you to."</p><p>"No, you—" Jason scooted back, pulling himself out from under Dick. Dick sat back to give him space, a curious look on his face. "Is this a dream?" Jason asked.</p><p>"It's almost Thanksgiving, Jay. Come in the house."</p><p>"No, I told you, I can't," Jason said. His voice came out strained and quiet. He wasn't sure why he couldn't go in the house, anymore, just that it was a rule. And Dick, this Dick, belonged in the house with the others.</p><p>"Then I'll stay out here with you," Dick said, leaning forward to kiss him again.</p><p>Jason closed his eyes, feeling like he was floating in a warm sea as Dick pressed their lips together. He wanted badly to be carried away by the tide.</p><p>"This isn't right," he whispered against Dick's mouth.</p><p>"So?" Dick whispered back.</p><p>Jason groaned and tipped his head away from Dick, trying to remember <em>why </em>he didn't want to kiss him. But lying on his back in a fragrant herb garden with Dick above him seemed all kinds of right (if a little odd) and whatever the missing piece was that some part of him was digging in his heels at, he couldn't bring it to mind.</p><p>He reached up to cradle the side of Dick's face and saw the dirt on his hands again, outlining his fingernails and creasing his palms. Dick caught Jason's hand in both of his own and brought it to his mouth. He kissed his knuckles, warm breath washing over them like a blessing, and—</p><p>Warm? That wasn't right. Dick ran cold these days. He—</p><p>Jason sat up in the motel bed, startling Damian.</p><p>"Did he—" Damian started.</p><p>"No," Jason interrupted. "No, that wasn't— no." He got out of bed and went straight to the bathroom and closed the door. The shower never made it past lukewarm anyway, so he didn't have to wait long after throwing his clothes on the ground to get in. The cool water washed away a little of the disgust he felt with himself, but not all of it. That would take scrubbing.</p><p>It wasn't the first time he'd dreamt of Dick… like that. And dreaming of his dead sort-of brother in that context was a whole different set of baggage, and not one he felt any particular urgency to unpack. But it was different now. Dick was <em>here</em>. Dick could <em>go into dreams</em>. Jason was well aware he couldn't exert much control over his subconscious, but he still felt like a creep.</p><p>"Todd," Damian called, knocking at the bathroom door. "You had better not be getting your bandages wet."</p><p>Ah, fuck.</p><p> </p><p>After Damian finished scolding him about proper wound care, it was finally time to figure a few things out. Jason still ached, but he was well enough to travel again. The question was where. And why. Jason had been on a mission to find Damian. Damian confessed he had been on a mission to find himself, though he had made little progress. He'd hoped the English countryside might bring him closer to Alfred, he admitted, but it had actually turned out just to be painful.</p><p>Then Damian asked the question Jason had been dreading.</p><p>"Is he here?"</p><p>Dick was not there. Jason wasn't sure when he'd stopped being aware of his presence. When he'd woken up, he'd been very determinedly <em>not</em> trying to think about or notice Dick. At some point between then and now, though, that vague tickle on the edge of his consciousness – like static electricity raising the hairs on his arm – had gone.</p><p>"No."</p><p>"I had thought perhaps… if he required assistance in his tasks…"</p><p>Jason shrugged.</p><p>"If he was only able to speak to you in your fevered state, perhaps if we were to induce a similar—"</p><p>"Whoa, hang on, back that thought process on up. I said he wasn't here," Jason said, alarmed. There was no way he was letting Damian put himself on hallucinogens just to talk to Dick.</p><p>"But he will surely return. He wouldn't just abandon us." Damian was trying to sound certain, but failed. Jason tried to think of something comforting to say, something big brother like, something <em>Dick</em> would do.</p><p>"Uh, I don't know," was what he came up with. "If he—"</p><p>There was a knock at the door and both Damian and Jason straightened. A flurry of communication passed between them at a glance as they both stood. Damian pulled his duffle onto the bed and rested a hand on it. Jason pulled a knife from his and went to the door.</p><p>The fishbowl lens of the peephole revealed the high school kid who worked the front desk, all curling hair and freckles. Calvin, Jason remembered reading on his name tag.</p><p>"Yeah?" Jason called through the door.</p><p>"It's Dick," Calvin said. "Open up."</p><p>Damian's eyes went wide and he took a step toward the door. Jason slid the bolt back and let Dick in, closing the door quickly behind him.</p><p>"I don't have long. I don't want Calvin to be noticed missing. But I had to— oh."</p><p>Damian had walked up to him calmly, wrapped his arms around Calvin's thin shoulders, and was now giving Dick the firmest hug he'd had in… well, in a very long time.</p><p>Dick's smile softened Calvin's face. He was dwarfed in Damian's arms, painfully longing for the days when he could just drop a hand onto Damian's head on the rare occasions he had a chance like this, but nevertheless returned the hug.</p><p>Damian stepped back and cleared his throat. "It is good to speak with you again, Grayson. Todd and I were just discussing the possibility of inducing the dream state that allowed you to talk to him during his fever."</p><p>"What? No!" Dick exclaimed. "Don't do that. The fever isn't necessary."</p><p>"Oh. Then why— that is, I thought you might have. Visited last night," Damian said.</p><p>"It's not that I didn't want to," Dick said. He glanced over his shoulder to where Jason was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, giving off the air of a cat ready to bolt at any moment. "It's just something I can do with Jason. I don't know why."</p><p>"Any time?" Jason asked.</p><p>"I think so," Dick responded.</p><p>"Then why not come to him last night? Rather than having to borrow this body?" Damian wondered.</p><p>"It seemed… rude to intrude," Dick demurred, and just like that, Jason <em>knew</em> Dick had been there last night. He really, really hoped he wasn't blushing right now and looked down at his shoes to try to hide it if he was. "I mean when we hadn't discussed it," Dick went on. "But that's not what I wanted to talk about now."</p><p>"What, then?" Jason asked, grasping on to a subject change with both hands.</p><p>"Well," Dick said slowly. "You both seem to want out of things. And you're together now. And I know a place up in Wisconsin…"</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The book Jason is reading is called <em>Cinnamon and Gunpowder</em> by Eli Brown</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They took it easy on the drive north, cutting it into two days when they could have pushed and made it one. Damian insisted on driving and Jason wasn't entirely sure whether it was a control thing or a Jason-is-injured thing. He didn't argue too much, but did take a few hours here and there to give Damian a break.</p><p>But even with taking it easy, it seemed like they were approaching far too quickly. The last few miles, Jason resisted the urge to grab the dashboard like they were careening down the Autobahn in a Bugatti instead of moseying their way up a gravel road in the world's oldest Chevy.</p><p>And then the house came into view. It was a cozy-looking two-storey cottage, stone and stucco with arched wooden beams framing a large porch. A chimney stretched up one side, and with the brilliant autumn foliage framing it, it made quite the lovely picture indeed.</p><p>Jason contemplated diving out the passenger door. Were they really doing this?</p><p>Damian pulled to a stop in front of the house and looked over at him. "Are you all right?"</p><p>"Yeah. Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" Dick had told them what to expect, and he'd had a day and a half to get used to the idea. But suddenly it seemed very real.</p><p>Damian took him at his word, though, and nodded. He got out of the car, squared his shoulders, and climbed the few steps to the porch. Jason had no choice but to scramble after him. They exchanged one last look before Damian raised a hand to knock— and the door swung open.</p><p>Alfred looked different when he wasn't wearing a suit. His sweater had leather patches on the elbows, and his feet were in house slippers. But he was still just as neat and tidy as ever, and Jason was aware for the first time that it had never been his suits that made him respectable and a little intimidating.</p><p>The expression on Alfred's face as he stood in the door was complicated. Jason had no idea what his own face might look like just now, but it certainly felt complicated too.</p><p>Damian cleared his throat, but Alfred beat him to it. "Are you here on your father's behalf?" he asked sternly.</p><p>"No," Damian blurted. "Not at all."</p><p>"He doesn't know we're here," Jason said. Alfred looked at him more closely and Jason realized with a pang that he hadn't recognized him. Well, why would he? He'd helped Damian abscond with Alfred's body, but he'd made himself scarce after that. If Alfred ever saw him, it would have been with the cowl.</p><p>"Jason," Alfred said. "I thought… in those early days, I thought Damian had told me you lived but I couldn't be sure if that was… if the Pit hadn't…"</p><p>"I know," Jason said. "Do I ever know. Pit haze is brutal, huh?"</p><p>"Even so, I never expected to see you – the both of you – oh, I say, let's not stand about in doorways. Do come in." He held the door wide for them and Jason saw just a hint of moisture in his eyes. "However did you find me? I was quite clear that Bruce was not to look for me—"</p><p>"We have not had contact with Father since the war," Damian said.</p><p>"He doesn't even know I'm alive," Jason put in.</p><p>"My boy," Alfred started, but Jason held up a hand.</p><p>"Don't. My choice. I prefer it this way. I figured you'd understand."</p><p>Alfred frowned, but eventually nodded. He led them over to a comfortable-looking couch and a few armchairs gathered around the fireplace. "Then, how?"</p><p>Damian looked to Jason. "He's here," Jason confirmed. "Dick," he clarified to Alfred. "He's been haunting you for a while now. He thought… uh, that is—" Suddenly them arriving here seemed an extreme imposition, a presumption on the most egregious scale.</p><p>"He thought you wouldn't turn away some company," Damian finished for him. "But if he was wrong, we will leave you be and no one will know where we've been."</p><p>Alfred was quiet for a few moments, nodding slowly to himself. "Hm," he said. Then he got up and went over to the kitchen, which opened onto the living room. He pulled out the kettle, and something loosened in Jason's shoulders. For now, at least, things were going to be okay.</p><p> </p><p>They stayed the night, at Alfred's invitation. He had a guest room in the basement and another in the attic, both immaculately made up. Jason said nothing about what a man living in determined isolation might need with spare bedrooms ready for company at a moment's notice, but he was starting to see what Dick had meant about company for Alfred.</p><p>Not only that, but the drive up here from the nearest town hadn't been exactly simple. Alfred was old, and winter in Wisconsin could be harsh. Company aside, he could use help. If he wanted it. Dick's instincts were usually right about these things.</p><p>Damian took the basement room and Jason climbed the stairs to the attic. His threadbare, soiled duffle and one change of clothes looked sorely out of place in the cozy turret room. He brushed his teeth in the attached half bath and got ready for bed, checking the claw marks on his side when he changed. They were healing well, but still stretched painfully if he twisted wrong.</p><p>He sat on the edge of the bed with his hand over the wound, thoughts wandering, before he realized he was <em>focusing</em>. Dick was here, Jason knew. He hadn't been with them for most of the drive, but he was here. Maybe not in this exact room, but in the house. And he'd definitely been with them as they'd spoken with Alfred late into the night.</p><p>Maybe he was checking on Damian and Alfred.</p><p>Maybe he was avoiding Jason.</p><p>Jason lay back on the bed with a sigh and closed his eyes, trying to will his body to relax. Here in this house in the woods, the world was quiet. A mild wind tickled the drying leaves on the trees, and somewhere distant an owl called. No one was looking for Jason or for Damian; either to hurt them or to recruit them. The world could forget about them, here.</p><p>So why couldn't he sleep?</p><p> </p><p>Jason passed a restless night and emerged from his room earlier than Damian or Alfred. He took advantage of that to commandeer the kitchen. It had been a lifetime, but he remembered which tea Alfred preferred with breakfast, and how he liked his eggs and toast. The smells eventually drew both Alfred and Damian from their rooms and they ate together around a small wooden table in a breakfast nook overlooking the back of the house.</p><p>"That garden could use some winter prep," Jason said thoughtfully. It was a well-tended vegetable garden that had just about wound down for the year. "Would you mind if I took care of it?"</p><p>"You needn't buy your place here," Alfred said with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>"Didn't think I was. We'll be on our way before lunch if that's what you want."</p><p>"Well," Alfred said. "It <em>could</em> use a bit of attention."</p><p> </p><p>Jason spent the day in the garden. Damian had trailed him outside and it wasn't long before both of them noticed the old potting shed had a leaking roof, a sagging door, and a cracked window. Damian went into town for supplies while Jason pruned back excess growth and cleared the beds for mulching. He was kneeling in the dirt wrestling with a particularly stubborn root when the dream from a few nights ago crashed down around him with such clarity that he looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the manor.</p><p>He sat back and dusted off his hands, taking a few calming breaths. As he did, he became aware of the slight distortion nearby that meant Dick was close. It wasn't a cold spot, exactly. More like a sniff of rain on a hot summer day, or the breeze that came through the windows the first time they were opened after a long winter. It was… refreshing.</p><p>"Hey, Dick," Jason greeted him. Then he got back to work.</p><p>Damian returned that afternoon not only with supplies to repair the potting shed, but with a few cheap changes of clothes for himself and Jason (he'd guessed at the sizes, but they were good enough, especially since Jason was pretty grimy by the end of the day), and groceries. Alfred brought them sandwiches for lunch, and toward the end of the day Jason could smell a stew even through the closed windows.</p><p>"You had better stay another night," Alfred said, a definite twinkle in his eye when they came in after a hard day's work. "I'm sure I can find <em>something</em> for you to do tomorrow."</p><p>And so he did. It was clear Dick had been correct in his assessment; Alfred was practically chattering, and that had never been his way before. He'd isolated himself for very good reasons, but that didn't mean he didn't miss his family.</p><p>"I just never thought I might have my family separate of that damn Bat," Alfred confessed on the third day, and it was clear Damian and Jason would be staying as long as they liked. "I half hoped you had come on Bruce's behalf. That perhaps he had seen sense and given it all up and sent you— ah, but the two of you are quite enough and more than I thought I would have in my twilight years."</p><p>Jason snorted. "There's life in you yet, grandpa," he said.</p><p>Alfred blinked at the form of address, then hastily got up to make tea, which was his way of saying he was quite pleased.</p><p>"You did have Grayson," Damian said. "He was watching over you."</p><p>"I <em>had</em> started to wonder about this house," Alfred admitted, setting the kettle to boil. "Just a feeling, at times. Or the odd noise here and there. Inconsistent radio signal." He gave a soft smile. "Dick never did much care for cricket."</p><p> </p><p>That night, Jason lay in bed staring at the sharply angled ceiling above him. The odd noises here and there had become a little more pronounced, like Dick was punctuating the conversations he was listening to. Lights would occasionally flicker when he agreed – or disagreed – with something that was said. It was far more presence than Alfred had described, and Jason had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with him. But he couldn't for the life of him understand why Dick, who loved to talk, was completely ignoring the one person in the house who could actually hold a conversation with him.</p><p>When Dick had possessed Calvin back at the motel, Jason had thought they might talk about it, since he seemed to feel he needed permission to enter Jason's dreams. But Dick had just explained about the house in Wisconsin, and about Alfred, and sent them on their way, claiming he'd held Calvin for too long.</p><p>"Dick, will you just… talk to me?" Jason asked the darkness, his voice pitched low. "I want to apologize if nothing else," he huffed, and then determinedly rolled over and closed his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Dick stood over Jason, looking down at him. His face was scrunched up on one side where it pressed into the pillow and he was curled under a quilt. It did nothing to diminish the spread of his aura, which, Dick had noticed after several nights of watching him, tended to expand when he slept, as though an awake Jason was constantly dragging it back under his control.</p><p>Dick held out a hesitant hand. Jason had asked, so this… this was definitely okay. He wasn't violating any boundaries and anyway, Jason should know he had nothing to apologize for. Still, he hesitated. Jason's aura was warm and gave easily under his hands, but flowed over his wrists with the now-familiar tugging sensation. He felt like a compass needle swaying toward a lodestone, like an ocean yearning toward the moon. Attraction.</p><p>He knelt on the bed as Jason's aura drew him closer, though of course he made no dent in the soft mattress. He closed his eyes and tried to let himself tip into Jason's dreaming mind while still keeping a distance, but nothing happened. It would seem closer contact really was necessary and Dick hated himself just a little at how relieved he was to have an excuse for it.</p><p>He matched the curl of Jason's body once more, tucking himself under Jason's chin so that his head would be resting on Jason's arm, if it had any physical presence.</p><p>And then he was in a small apartment while rain spattered against the windows, sitting at a round kitchen table and watching Jason stir something on the stove. Jason had on a well-worn pair of jeans and a plain red t-shirt and was barefoot, humming contentedly as he leaned over a steaming pot and inhaled before judiciously adding a sprinkle of some spice plucked from a nearby rack. Based on the smells wafting through the warm kitchen, Dick would guess homemade pasta sauce and probably garlic bread in the oven.</p><p>He looked down at himself. He was in an impossibly soft cream-colored sweater, just a bit oversized with sleeves that could cover his hands, and leggings so comfortable he barely realized he was wearing them. He was also barefoot. A mug steamed on the table in front of him and he picked it up with both hands and held it close to his face. Ginger and honey met his nose and he sighed happily.</p><p>Jason looked over his shoulder and grinned at him. "Almost ready," he said. Dick was astonished to feel his stomach rumble, apparently loud enough that Jason could hear because he laughed happily as he bent to pull the garlic bread from the oven.</p><p>Dick took a tentative sip of his tea, the long sleeves of his sweater protecting his hands from the warm mug. He could <em>taste </em>it. He closed his eyes and picked out every flavor crossing his tongue; ginger and honey, yes, but also a slight tang of turmeric and even a hint of chocolate. He was so absorbed with the flavors he didn't notice Jason had put a heaping dish of pasta in front of him and had joined him at the table with his own.</p><p>Jason seemed so happy. So content. Dick took a deep breath and pulled the band-aid off. "Jason, it's me," he said.</p><p>"Yeah? Who else would it be?" Jason asked.</p><p>"No, I mean it's really me. Here in your dream, and in Alfred's cabin with you."</p><p>Jason blinked a few times, then looked around. "Oh. Right. Well, you might as well eat anyway before you go."</p><p>"Go?"</p><p>"I know you don't want to be in my dreams after what you saw last time. I wanted to say sorry, that's all. You shouldn't have had to see that, and I promise it was just… just a stupid…" Jason frowned and Dick got the distinct impression that the dream wasn't letting him say what he wanted, wasn't letting him deflect or dissemble. You couldn't hide in a dream. "Well, I didn't mean to, and I apologize."</p><p>"You don't have to," Dick said. "I was the one who just showed up. I shouldn't have. Your dreams are private. It's your head."</p><p>Jason gave him a confused look. "You don't seem upset. Or, I guess you do seem upset but not about what you should be upset about."</p><p>"How can I hold what you dream against you?" Dick wondered. "Especially when I turned up with no warning, and without your consent."</p><p>"That's what's bothering you? Dick, you're welcome here if you want to be here. I can't promise you won't see something like that again and I completely understand if that keeps you away but if you still want to… consider this an open invitation."</p><p>"Want to?" Dick echoed. "Of course I want to. I— thank you."</p><p>"Least I could do," Jason said with a shrug. "After what you've done for me and Damian. And I'm not gonna lie, having someone who can swoop in and end a nightmare just by being there is kind of appealing."</p><p>Dick grinned, relieved at the thought that Jason might get something out of this, too. "Happy to do that any time."</p><p>"Good. Now, eat. I think I made tiramisu for dessert."</p><p>Dick paused, his fork hovering over his dish. "Did I interrupt dream date night?" he wondered.</p><p>Jason snorted. "This is better."</p><p> </p><p>It grew colder, the trees shedding the warmth of autumn color to stand bare, waiting for winter to bring them new coats of ice and snow. Jason's attic room shared a wall with the chimney from the fireplace on the main level and stayed cozy, which Jason had to tell Dick when he asked since Dick couldn't feel it himself.</p><p>They sold the Prizm; Alfred had an SUV built for the snow stashed in the one-car garage next to the house, and Damian used it to make supply runs to town when the road grew treacherous.</p><p>Jason more or less took over the meal planning and the main bulk of the cooking, though more often than not all three of them ended up in the kitchen together, moving smoothly around each other to prepare meals.</p><p>Damian became very invested in cricket. Alfred still followed the sport via radio, sometimes at very odd hours indeed, and Damian matched his fervor. Jason didn't mind it, but didn't really get it and usually tucked himself into an armchair to read his latest library book while they listened. He made sure to keep a cheap lamp nearby so Dick could tell him if he turned the page too fast.</p><p>Sometimes Dick would go away for a little while. Jason and Alfred were quick to notice, and had to let Damian know since all of them had gotten into the habit of talking out loud to Dick. When Dick came back, he'd always fill Jason in on where he'd been and what he'd been doing for Rama Kushna. They'd gotten better at controlling Jason's dreamscape, and Dick could actually show Jason what had happened most of the time.</p><p>"You could take me with," Jason said, not for the first time, after one of those occasions. They were sharing a bench at the Gotham zoo in Jason's dream. Jason had put them in front of the elephant enclosure, and seeing how excited Dick got when he saw where they were had made Jason's whole week.</p><p>"You really want to get back into that life?" Dick asked.</p><p>"Well, no. Not into the life. Retirement suits me," Jason said. It was a gloriously sunny day, with just a bit of breeze carrying the smell of roasting nuts to them as it kept them cool. Jason had edited out the smell of elephant. "But if you needed a hand. You're stronger when I'm around, and if you needed a trained body to possess I could be handy."</p><p>"You'd let me possess you?"</p><p>"Not like, whenever. But if you needed it. Yeah."</p><p>Dick leaned over on the bench until his shoulder bumped Jason's. "Thanks, Jay. But I can handle it."</p><p>"Sure," Jason said. "I just can't shake the feeling I should be doing something. I mean, there has to be a reason you're stronger when I'm around. A reason for all of this," he said, with a gesture around them. "Think it's just the Pit?"</p><p>"No," Dick said. "If it was, then I'd be able to visit with Alfred like this." Dick had tried, back when Jason and Damian were on their way to the cabin. Dick had gone ahead and tried to drop into Alfred's dreams. But it had gone exactly the same way it had with Damian. "He can sense me a little better than most, so I think that might be the Pit, but that's it."</p><p>"Hm. Guess I'm just weird," Jason said with an easy shrug.</p><p>Dick thought about Jason's aura, the way it pulled at him and welcomed him. Alfred's aura was different due to his dip in the Pit, but it was nothing like Jason's. It didn't react to Dick like Jason's.</p><p>"Maybe I'm the weird one," Dick said. "Ever think of that? Unless you've been sharing your dreams with other ghosts when I'm away."</p><p>Jason laughed and the sun got a little brighter. "Nope. You're the only ghost for me, Dickiebird. I mean, I could sense other spirits if there were any around, but this… this is something else."</p><p>"It really is. Magic users can sometimes see me. And when I'm in the House of Mystery or the Tower of Fate or somewhere like that, I can talk with anyone. But this…"</p><p>"Maybe our weirds just match."</p><p>"I've been thinking something along those lines lately," Dick said. "And wondering whether Rama Kushna knew."</p><p>"You think a goddess made this happen?" Jason asked, frowning.</p><p>"No," Dick said. "I just think she knew it would if we met. I think she knew we were— that we match."</p><p>Jason leaned back on the bench, arms spread across the back, and examined the sky. "I don't know whether to be flattered or freaked out that a goddess was playing matchmaker with us." He straightened suddenly and looked back at Dick. "Uh. Not that I think that was— that we are— I mean, I didn't mean match like <em>match—</em>"</p><p>"What if I did?" Dick asked.</p><p>Jason stared at him. "You what?"</p><p>"What if I meant match like <em>match</em>?"</p><p>Jason stood abruptly and stepped away from the bench. The sun seemed to be setting rapidly, and the zoo was starting to look less like a zoo and more like the city, the wide paths narrowing and buildings looming suddenly on the horizon. "I'd say you've been isolated with only me to talk to for too long," he said, turning away and crossing his arms. Only, it looked more like he was wrapping his arms around himself for warmth than putting up a strong front.</p><p>"I don't think so," Dick said, also standing but keeping his distance. "Jason, no one reacts to me the way you do. I'm talking on a soul level, deep as it goes."</p><p>"You only want me because I'm the only one you can have," Jason whispered.</p><p>"Jason. I can't lie here. I think we're—"</p><p> </p><p>Jason woke up. Dick, curled up against his chest as was his habit, pressed his forehead to Jason's heart. "Damn it, Jay."</p><p>Jason rolled onto his back and lay there, staring into the darkness. Dick followed out of habit, snuggling up against his side, willing Jason to feel what he felt, to acknowledge that it was real and not just a byproduct of isolation.</p><p>Jason rolled over to his other side and didn't go back to sleep that night.</p><p> </p><p>Jason trudged down the stairs when he heard Alfred moving around in the kitchen the next morning. They fell into their easy routine of Jason making the tea and Alfred making toast. It looked like he had a pot of oatmeal on the stove, enough for three, with some blackberry jam from a local farm to sweeten it.</p><p>Jason put a cup of tea at Alfred's place at the table and sat down at his own, automatically holding his cup out toward the fourth empty chair that they left for Dick so that no one would inadvertently sit on him. Dick had a knack for lowering the temperature of tea until it was exactly right for drinking. Alfred preferred to wait for his tea to cool while he read the local newspaper and The Guardian on his tablet, but Dick's little ability saved Jason a burned tongue pretty much every morning.</p><p>Alfred was giving him an odd look and Jason blinked blearily at his cup, tugging it back when he realized what he was doing.</p><p>"He's not here right now," Alfred said. Normally Jason was the first to notice, but Alfred could sense Dick too, if he tried. "Did you sleep well?"</p><p>"Uh," Jason said, staring into his steaming mug. Alfred knew he and Dick could speak in dreams, and knowing him, had already deduced that something had gone wrong last night. "No. Dick and I had kind of a fight."</p><p>"Oh?" Alfred asked, setting his tablet aside to give Jason his full attention. Jason's eyes went to the door to the basement. "Damian has already been and gone," Alfred said. "He's working on his training area." There was the faintest frown line between Alfred's eyebrows when he mentioned the training area. While Damian had clearly needed this retreat, both Jason and Alfred suspected it might be a temporary respite. Damian didn't take to the quiet as Jason did and Jason wouldn't be at all surprised if he ventured out again once he had done a little figuring himself out. Jason wasn't sure what he'd do then.</p><p>Right now he was definitely feeling like he'd go with, though.</p><p>"Dick said… he said he thinks the reason he can come into my dreams is because… I mean I think he was suggesting…" He knew the words he wanted to say. He didn't want to hear them out loud. They seemed far too dramatic for a little kitchen table in a homey cabin in the woods where snow was piling up quietly on the windowsills behind plaid curtains. "That we're meant to be together," he settled on.</p><p>"I see," Alfred said. "And you disagreed?"</p><p>"Of course I did," Jason said. "He's just been isolated for too long. It's Dick, can you imagine what only being able to talk to one person must be doing to him? And he knows I— um." Jason stopped, embarrassed by what he'd been about to share.</p><p>"Ah," Alfred said. "You did used to moon after him a bit, didn't you."</p><p>"I didn't <em>moon</em>," Jason objected. "Come on. What teenager wouldn't have a crush on Nightwing if they caught a look at him out in the city?"</p><p>"Indeed. But you are no longer a teenager, and Dick is no longer Nightwing. And yet." Alfred gave Jason a knowing look. "I am not certain you can dismiss this as a crush, on your part."</p><p>Jason felt his cheeks warming. "That doesn't matter," he said. "What matters is he knows, and he's just… fooling himself into thinking it's something real."</p><p>"Hm," Alfred said. "I'll confess this is somewhat outside of my experience to give advice on. But Dick has always been genuine in his feelings. He might hide them or put forward a false face as a means to an end, but he is only effective at it because he knows his own heart so truly. 'Fooling himself' has never been one of his weaknesses."</p><p>"Yeah, but this is kind of a different situation. It's like he's been in solitary for years, and that does things to a person, you know?"</p><p>"Indeed," Alfred agreed. "As I said, this is outside my realm of experience. But it is outside yours as well. And, am I correct in assuming that rather than speak at length about it, as we are doing right now, you simply woke up and refused to go back to sleep?"</p><p>Jason stared. How did he always know these things? "I can't help when I wake up."</p><p>"No. But all of us are quite good at staving off sleep when it is unwanted."</p><p>"Well, he's not even here anymore. I chased him away."</p><p>"Ah, yes. And Dick Grayson is certainly known for giving up that easily." Alfred took a sip of his tea and Jason put his face in his hands with a groan.</p><p> </p><p>He had to sleep eventually, of course. Especially after spending the afternoon shoveling out the driveway even as the snow continued to fall, just so it wouldn't be impossible to do later when it finally stopped. If it ever stopped. Jason mentally added <em>snow blower </em>to the list of things they needed to pick up the next time they made it into town.</p><p>He distracted himself helping Damian in the basement. He got his ass thoroughly kicked in a spar to test out the new mats Damian had put down, and cringed a little remembering how he'd offered to help Dick out on his Deadman missions. He was out of shape, and if he was going to help Dick, he'd need to—</p><p>No. It wasn't healthy, for either of them, and he needed to stop thinking of a future that contained any iteration of him-and-Dick as a partnership.</p><p>He didn't miss the concerned looks Damian and Alfred gave each other and him throughout the day and well into the night when he stayed up reading on the couch even as the both of them headed to bed.</p><p>But he couldn't stay awake forever, not in a safe, warm house with a full stomach and a soft bed. Jason went upstairs to brush his teeth and splash water on his face, but made the mistake of sitting down on his bed and next thing he knew he was horizontal. Maybe he would be too exhausted to dream.</p><p> </p><p>"I made a list," Dick said.</p><p>Jason looked around. Usually when Dick visited him in his dreams, he'd show up in the midst of something Jason was already dreaming, and the dream would shift around them to suit their need. This time, Jason was pretty sure he hadn't even had a chance to start dreaming anything else. They were atop a building somewhere in Gotham's skyline. Dick was Nightwing, though Jason stayed in his standard jeans and jacket.</p><p>"A list of what?" Jason asked. There was always the possibility this was a dream version of Dick. Jason had been thinking about him a lot lately, after all. But he felt lucid enough that he was pretty sure this was the real thing.</p><p>"Of all the people I could be with who aren't you."</p><p>Oh. So maybe it was a nightmare.</p><p>Dick pulled an actual piece of paper from somewhere and read from it. "Number one. Constantine."</p><p>"Constantine?" Jason demanded. "Wait, when you say <em>be with</em>—"</p><p>"I mean people I could hang out with and carry on a conversation with, though in most of these cases, yeah, <em>romantic options </em>are a possibility!" Dick said viciously. "Constantine's got all kinds of little interdimensional spaces where I can actually manifest and affect things. And yeah, he's into me. Number two: Zatanna."</p><p>"Oh my God," Jason said, covering his face with his hands.</p><p>"Less environmental possibilities, but she can talk to me at least. Then there's Doctor Fate, or rather the spirit of the helm, who I heard fled back to the tower—"</p><p>"He's <em>ancient</em>! Literally!"</p><p>"Something to be said for centuries of knowledge," Dick said relentlessly. He proceeded to list several more people they both knew, many with addendums that showed exactly how much thought Dick had put into the list, until Jason finally interrupted him.</p><p>"Stop, stop," he said desperately. "If there's so many people you can be with, why don't you just go be with them, then?" he demanded.</p><p>"Finally," Dick said. "That is <em>exactly </em>my point." He held the piece of paper up between two fingers until the wind snatched it away, tumbling it through the air and out of sight in an instant.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"I have options, Jason. I chose to stay here. And then I chose to bring you here. I would have made those choices even if we couldn't do what we can with the dreams. If all I wanted was close contact, or to talk to someone, I could. I'm not desperate. You're not a last resort. You <em>get</em> what I've been through, and I get what you've been through. I'm not gonna drag you back into the game, and you're not going to drag me. Not only <em>can</em> I talk to you, I want to. I want to hear what you have to say. I love the way you let me read over your shoulder, and how you talk to me even when you can't hear my answers so that I don't feel left out. I love that you never try to push yourself on me, and even when I know you want this, your first thought is for me and whether I'm okay. I love how generous you are, how you always want to take care of other people. I could go on, but if I do I think you might burst a blood vessel," Dick said with a fond look at Jason's blush.</p><p>"You— I didn't know. All of that. Or about the others. That you could seek out," Jason admitted.</p><p>"I've been thinking about this for a while," Dick said.</p><p>"Then, what you said last time, about… matching? Is that true?"</p><p>"What? Of course it's true," Dick said. "I think we're soul mates."</p><p>He said it so easily, but Jason felt like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. He was suddenly very aware of how high up they were, so far that he couldn't actually see the street below. He moved closer to the middle of the roof and sat down hard, staring at his knees.</p><p>Dick came and sat in front of him. "Here's the thing, though," he went on, his voice gentle. "We don't have to do anything about that. If this is too much for you, it can just be a neat thing two ex-Robins have in common. If you want it, though… there's no reason we can't have it."</p><p>Jason looked up. "Is this a dream?"</p><p>"Well, yeah. But it's one of the real ones."</p><p>Jason reached out between them and Dick took his hand. "I want it," Jason said softly, like he was confessing a sin. Dick grinned and stood, tugging Jason to his feet after him.</p><p>"Good. I want to show you something." Dick turned Jason around and suddenly they were in Jason's attic room, or a dream approximation of it. The window still showed Gotham's skyline, and the bed seemed disproportionately large. Dick tugged Jason toward it, walking backward, and simply hovered when his knees hit the edge of the bed and floated back onto it so that he could keep pulling Jason all the way into the bed after him.</p><p>"Uh, Dick, what exactly—"</p><p>"Gutter brain," Dick teased. "Nothing like that, I just wanted you to see— here, lay down. Yeah, like that."</p><p>Jason lay on his side, the same way he usually slept, and Dick curled against him, pillowing his head on Jason's arm and sliding his own arm under Jason's side. The dream mattress gave way the way a real mattress wouldn't and let him hold Jason just as he did when slipping into his dreams.</p><p>"This is how I get here," Dick whispered. "How close I have to be to enter your dreams. This is how I lay with you every single night. I just wanted you to finally know."</p><p>"Every night?" Jason asked, a little breathless. "I had no idea." His arms closed around Dick in exactly the way Dick had been wanting them to ever since that night in the motel. He pulled Dick to him more firmly and Dick closed his eyes to memorize the way it felt.</p><p>Jason dropped a soft kiss to his head and Dick's eyes popped open. At some point, the Nightwing costume had vanished and Dick was wearing just an oversized t-shirt and pajama pants. It took him a moment to realize that he recognized them, because they were Jason's.</p><p>Jason tugged his arm out from under Dick's head, so Dick sat up a little and re-settled so his head was on the pillow next to Jason's. "Jay?" he asked.</p><p>Jason reached out and pushed a bit of hair out of Dick's face, then leaned in and pressed his lips to Dick's. It was a short kiss, and chaste. Jason pulled away, looking at Dick for approval.</p><p>"So how does it compare to dream me?" Dick asked, only half joking.</p><p>Jason grinned. "Hm, I dunno," he said. "I think I need a larger sample size."</p><p>"Oh really?" Dick said, eyes sparkling. "I do think that can be arranged." He darted forward and sealed his lips to Jason's in a kiss that was soft and hard at once. Dick's hand tangled in Jason's hair, tugging him closer once more, and he felt Jason smile against his mouth as he let himself be pulled.</p><p>There was, Dick considered, a great deal of potential in dreams. They'd have to take their time exploring.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The prompt was:<br/><em>I met a half ghost on the midnight bus. An errand boy for death, he was shotgunning energy drinks, and cleaning blood out of his nails.</em><br/>I went a bit far afield with it, but I do hope you enjoyed &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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